Banquet
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Turn back the clock twenty years, to 1984. Here are three people learning the tastes of life.
1. Bitter

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Yowamushi Montblanc" composed by DECO*27, sung by GUMI.

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Bitter

It was a warm day at the end of summer, and the crowds were out in full force to soak up as much sunlight as they could. Tucked away on a narrow side street, there was a narrow café popular with the local college students. As the day went on, it would become a convenient, fairly quiet and reasonably priced source of caffeine and study space, but for now it was simply a nice place to stop in for a quick snack on the way to a midday seminar.

Vlad Masters sat at a small table, picking at his pasta. He'd just gotten in some money and decided to splurge, which had turned out to be a mistake. Oh, the coffee had arrived within ten minutes as per usual, but he'd decided to hold off on drinking it until his food arrived. His spaghetti marinara had taken nearly half an hour, and his table-mates had seized their chance to enter into an enthusiastic conversation from which they had quite emphatically excluded his miserable self.

He glanced at the wall clock, a tacky lime green cylinder with a white face and multicolored numbers. To either side, his table-mates were finishing up their conversation, the larger man taking his latte to go. Giving up, he choked down the last few mouthfuls of cold pasta, swallowing hard and washing it down with the dregs of his cold coffee. Grimacing at the taste, he threw the plastic fork, foam plate and cup into a trash can on his way out, flinching at the too-bright sunlight as he left the café.

Muttering dire threats at the sun, he picked his way along the sidewalk, going from shadow to shadow until his eyes adjusted. Blinking away the last few spots, he looked around, checked the landmarks against his mental map of the area, and decided to take the usual shortcut. Behind him, a man cursed when the remains latte was spilled onto the street courtesy of an overenthusiastic and oversized canine. A young woman offered him a tissue to clean up the mess.

Vlad stopped to let his study partners catch up, muttering something uncomplimentary in the general direction of the dog's owner. As they approached him, he stomped off, annoyed with the stupidity of human and animal alike.

They crossed into the campus, past a faded sign that gathered new graffiti at least once a month. Jack always laughed whenever he figured out what the graffiti meant, while Vlad and Maddie would share a bemused look. Somewhere to the left, a rusty gate that hid a narrow walkway that cut through to the dorms. It was Maddie's favorite shortcut, and Jack's, despite how he would always get leaves and twigs and who-knew-what stuck in his hair and on his clothes. It was a very narrow walkway, with lots of overhanging branches and ivy. Personally, Vlad preferred the sterile hallways of the newer buildings to dirt and grime, but each to their own.

A piece of paper smacked him in the face. He snatched it away, biting back a curse, and blinked at the flyer. Rather than the expected Wisconsin Badgers game advertisement, it was a flyer announcing the founding of the University Research Park. He scowled and let it fly away, not appearing to notice the protests of the young woman trying to re-tie a knot in the larger man's shoe.

After what seemed to be an interminable span of time broken only by short bursts of conversation, the little group arrived at the dorms and went their separate ways. Vlad trailed behind the larger man, suddenly exhausted. He hardly noticed when he was left behind as the man continued on past his building. Vlad entered the sturdy brick building, dragging leaden feet up what felt like seventeen flights of stairs. Reaching his room, he fished a brass key out of his pocket, unlocked the door and collapsed over the threshold.

A while later, he finally stirred himself enough to lock the door behind him, hide the key in its usual spot and kick his shoes off. Draping his jacket over the back of a chair, he trudged to his cot and fell into blissful unconsciousness.

He woke what seemed like seconds later to the sound of an air horn going off right in his ear. Glaring at his juvenile roommate, Vlad snatched the horn away and threw it into a corner to collect dust. Vlad shoved his way past the walking waste of nap-time, peeling off his sweat-stained shirt, and he frowned at a somewhat mysterious reddish stain marring the white fabric. Groaning, he made a mental note to pick up some stain remover. Bleach, if all else failed, but the fabric was already wearing thin.

Tuning out his roommate's pointless complaints, he spotted his reflection in the small mirror hanging on the inside of the door, somehow still unbroken after repeated slammings. Raising an eyebrow, he smirked, flexing imagined muscles.

The dam broke, and the room filled with the sound of laughter. Vlad glared at his so-called best friend in the world, Jack Fenton, and wondered if repeated jokes at one's expense qualified as grounds for aggravated assault. Then he remembered that Jack could literally lift him with one hand and mentally grumbled at the unfairness of life, the universe and everything.

He yelped as Jack literally shoved him out of the door, challenging him to a race to the showers. Rolling his eyes, Vlad smiled at his bumbling friend's antics and followed him. One might say he was a coward (among other things) for refusing to go to the showers alone at night. In his defense, "one" must never have been the resident weedy nerd of the dorm. He'd had enough swirlies to last him several lifetimes, thank you very much. Idiot frat boys.

Half an hour later, Vlad yanked the covers over his head and cursed his miserable life. Why, oh why had his wondrous Maddie had to have come by with their research notes just as he'd returned from the facilities and seen his bright pink shower cap?

His roommate said something that was most likely meant to cheer him up, but fell far short of the goal. Vlad closed his eyes, wishing the blankets were better noise reducers, and vowed for the thousandth time that he would confess to Maddie – preferably far away from Jack and his horrible sense of timing.

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A/N: Well, this was full of ugh. ...Matsuri is bad at story planning, and is fully aware of this. This chapter came from the tiny bit of college-age Vlad we saw in the flashback scene in Bitter Reunions. He seemed rather cranky.


	2. Sour

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Heavy in Your Arms" by Florence and the Machine.

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Sour

It was a chilly autumn night, leaves scattered on the sidewalk red-gold in the light of incandescent street lamps. I sat at a battered iron bench tucked away in a corner of the University of Wisconsin campus. I had a sheaf of papers in one hand, the other clenched hard enough to turn white.

"Maddie?"

It was so damn cold, I was shaking like a leaf.

"Maddiekins…"

I snapped. "What?"

"It wasn't your fault, you know that," he said. He was staring down at me with that silly hangdog look, pouting like a disappointed child like he did whenever things didn't go his way.

"How do you know?" I croaked. "How would you know whose mistake caused that, that-"

"Horrible accident?" he finished.

"Tragedy," I corrected.

He straightened, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. "Well, I don't know," he admitted. "Haven't got a clue! But, Maddie, you didn't want that to happen, right?"

That was enough to shock me into sitting up, clutching the papers to my chest, right hand fisted and one movement away from his face. "Of course not!" _You idiot_, I was tempted to add.

"So you didn't do anything that could have made the Proto-Portal malfunction?" he pressed on.

"No," I spat.

He brightened up, a broad smile gleaming under the lamps. "Then it couldn't possibly be your fault!"

I let my hand fall back to my side, straightening to look at Jack with as little of a height disadvantage as possible. The thought that I should have worn taller heels crossed my mind, but I waved it away.

"It was both our faults," he said.

My jaw dropped. I felt my shoulders slump and brought a trembling hand to my forehead, brushing my hair back. I stopped, annoyed, when my hand tangled in a knot. A perm just did not work well with my hair.

Jack reached down, delicately gripping my hand and moving a few chemically stiffened locks out of the way. I froze, but he only squeezed my hand for a second before letting go. He stepped back, looking at me in an unnervingly direct way only the innocent, the mad and the very stubborn can.

I dropped my gaze, staring very intently at the leaf-strewn concrete. We stood there in a silent battle of wills for a few long moments, unless I was the only one battling. For one of those moments, we were back in the lab and I was checking over his calculations for the thousandth time. He was standing there staring at me, trying his hardest not to fidget, and I could hear his shoes squeaking as he scuffed at the tile. I smiled. Jack was right. We'd all worked on that project. It had been Jack's idea, and he'd drawn the original blueprints. I'd checked his calculations and redrawn the designs. He'd built the Proto-Portal's framework and put in most of the parts, and then I'd taken it apart and put everything back together in a way that could actually function. Even Vlad had thrown in his two cents, usually from across the room as he pretended very hard he wasn't interested. No, the Proto-Portal was both of our pet project. Like I could ever blame Jack for something like this.

I sighed and looked back up to meet his unswerving gaze. "I get it, Jack. If it was my fault, it was also yours, which means it's pointless to point fingers. …Especially at myself."

He blinked. "What? Oh! Yeah, of course, that's what I meant!" he boomed out, grinning and striking what I'm sure he thought was a heroic pose. Really, he looked more like an overgrown kid playing superhero. It was so cute.

…_Did I really just think that?_

A breeze blew past, and I reflexively curled in on myself to block it out, pressing the papers from the lab flat against my chest. "Cold," I muttered.

"What? Oh! Here you go, Maddie." With that, he shrugged off his worn wool overcoat and hung it over my shoulders. Surprised, I sagged under its weight.

"Thanks," I said, hunching down a bit to hide a blush.

He grinned. "No sweat, Maddie!"

Speaking of which – yes, the jacket was damp around the underarms. Considering how cold it was, it must have been from nerves, and Jack had just put on a brave face to try to keep me from worrying. Obviously, that hadn't worked. I shook my head, drawing it tighter while trying to keep from touching the damp spots.

A tap on my shoulder. I looked up again. "Yes, Jack?"

He smiled, this time wide and wobbly, relieved. "You doing okay now, Maddiekins?"

I nodded. "I will be."

"Great, then I'll walk you home!" he boomed out, setting off toward the dorms.

I followed him, rolling my eyes, again glad he couldn't see me. Jack was sweet, really, but this wasn't the fifties. A guy could do a little more than walk a girl home once in a while and hold hands. _A kiss, for starters._

_Mind, out of gutter, now! One of our closest friends is in the hospital with a horribly disfiguring skin condition and who knows what else, and you're fantasizing about his cute roommate. Bad Maddie, bad girl!_

And that just set off another round of fantasies involving me and Jack and a for-once-empty dorm, or maybe a convenient hotel room. I must have been about twenty different shades of red at that point. Then I walked into something – er, someone.

"Oops. Sorry, Jack," I simpered. Simpered. I ask you, what is it about broad shoulders and muscles that turns a perfectly reasonable up-and-coming young woman into a simpering mass of hormones? …Oh, right. Muscles. Drat.

I shook my head, realizing he was asking me something. "What?" I asked blearily.

"Aw, Maddie, I'm sorry. Here I am, blathering on, and you're about to fall asleep standing up." He grinned at that, but there was an odd edge to it, quickly explained when he picked me up in a bridal carry.

I blushed, momentarily speechless. That wore off fairly quickly. "Jack! What are you doing?" I hissed, suddenly worried someone might hear. Silly, really, it had to be past midnight, and the campus wasn't exactly busy at this hour.

And then I was grateful to have a solidly built escort. Not that any common criminal could hurt me, but I really wasn't in the mood to fight anyone. That is to say, I didn't want to have to find a pay phone to call an ambulance for the would-be mugger or whatever else I might run into.

And Jack was awfully solid, and warm, and I was so sleepy…

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A/N: Another. Bleeping. New fic. I swear, it was supposed to be a oneshot, but then it got out of control...

EDIT: For those who are wondering what the bleep happened, I wrote a story set before this, and it is the new first chapter. This hasn't changed. Yes, I know I'm bad at story planning.


End file.
